


our wretched hearts are tangled, darling

by mckayla (steveromanov)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Characters/Pairings to be added, F/M, One Shot Collection, Rating May Change, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 10:02:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6113062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steveromanov/pseuds/mckayla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of AU, canon-divergent, and/or in-universe one-shots centered on Steve and Nat. Other relationships will be added as they show but will probably be background or secondary. Feel free to leave prompts!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. depending on your point of view

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave prompts!! The rating will definitely change as fics are added.
> 
> Title taken from [this beautiful poem](http://vrataski.co.vu/post/134944932418/i-love-you-our-wretched-hearts-are-tangled).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Natasha picks Steve up from failed dates she's set him up on, and they unknowingly go on their own dates afterward. And then the one time where he goes on a date he's set up himself, Natasha doesn't know what to feel other than confused and hurt, and, in the end, Steve makes everything better again.

Steve’s waiting outside the café when Natasha pulls up in her corvette, his hands in his pockets and a wince on his face. She rolls the window down as she slowly comes to a stop in front of him, leaning in her seat so she can see his face as he bends down to accommodate her. And despite his expression, the smart-ass still says, “Your car is not made for people five-foot-five and taller, you know this.”

Her scowl may not be totally mean as she replies, “If you purposely tank a date I set you up on, I’m purposely bringing a car you can barely fit in.”

“I did not _purposely_ ruin the date,” Steve argues as he climbs inside, making a show of bending his knees and scrunching up in the seat. Okay, he may not entirely be putting on a show. She can see that his feet are planted flat on the floor and his knees are _still_ almost touching his chest. “We just didn’t… click.”

“‘Click,’” she repeats disbelievingly. “When you called asking for a ride, you told me that she left halfway through a war story you were telling.”

“She got a text and told me that something urgent had come up.” Based by the look on his face, she can tell that even he doesn’t believe that one. She gives him a withering look of her own and he lets out a deep breath, relenting. “Alright, I may have gotten a _little_ detailed.”

“ _Steve_.”

He holds his hands up at his sides, and if she wasn’t so irritated with him she’d find it funny. He looks like a t-rex, all scrunched up and arms pressed to his torso like that. “In my defense, hanging exclusively around people who are privy to battle on a constant basis makes it easy to forget that there are, in fact, some who aren’t.”

“I admit, a civilian probably wasn’t the smartest choice. At least, not this early. Still—” She points her finger at him for emphasis, and he quickly glances between it and her face. “I bet you didn’t even try all that hard in the first place.”

“Nat, I really did. I swear.”

She shoots him a doubtful look as she starts to pull away from the curb. “Sure.”

“I promise!”

“Whatever. You can attempt to keep up that lie over takeout and ice cream.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him roll his own. They drive in silence for a moment, the stoplights and passing neon signs reflecting color over their faces before Steve’s voice comes from the other side of the car again—“Okay, I didn’t really try.”

“I know. For that, you’re buying the takeout.”

*** 

The next date Natasha picks him up on is a few weeks later. He’d finally acquiesced to an outing with Lillian from what used to be accounting, but since SHIELD’s no more and Natasha frankly hasn’t found her important enough to keep extensive tabs on, she has no idea what Lillian does now. Her lip ring’s gone, she knows that much, because it’s the only reason why Steve agreed to a date in the first place. And she likes bowling, which is why Natasha suggested Steve take her to a bowling alley downtown for their night out.

She just hadn’t expected having to go to said bowling alley herself to pick Steve up when, once again, he’d made a mess of the date Natasha had set him up on.

“Why don’t you start driving yourself to these things?” She asks as she rolls up in front of him.

“A motorcycle isn’t exactly first date material,” he comments.

She sighs. “What happened this time?”

“First thing’s first, I’m gonna just say right now that things were actually going pretty well for a while there,” he starts. Then he pulls a face and rubs at the back of his neck with his hand, bashful embarrassment displaying across his features. “But then I may have miscalculated my strength and accidentally lodged a bowling ball into the lane. The staff kicked us out.”

She fixes him with an unimpressed look. “I honestly don’t have anything to say to that besides, ‘Wow.’”

“Yeah. Right?”

“No, I mean, _wow_ , you actually expect me to believe that you ‘miscalculated’ your strength.”

“It happens! And you really think I’d actually deface public property just because I didn’t want to go on a date?”

“Ooh, so you’re admitting you never wanted to go in the first place.”

“I’ve been making that pretty clear from the very start, actually.”

She frowns. “I thought you liked Lillian enough.”

“I do,” he replies. “But as a friend.”

“So this was just some sort of friendly outing,” she says flatly.

“Well, for me, yeah. I’m pretty sure she was under the impression that this was an actual date, but since I’ve now gotten her banned from her favorite place to bowl, I don’t think I’ll be hearing from her again.” He tries and fails at hiding his relief.

“Okay, what? It couldn’t have been that bad. You said things were going alright at first.”

He winces, maybe a little too exaggeratedly. “She’s apparently ditched the lip ring in favor of a much wilder, colorful, and too-much-for-me-to-handle-at-the-moment tongue piercing.”

“Huh. You really missed out on a fantastic time, then. Tongue piercings are supposed to be amazing during oral sex.”

“ _Jesus_ , Nat.”

She ignores the fact that even picturing Lillian so much as _touching_ Steve in an intimate way makes her stomach churn, and suggests that they go catch a movie showing to distract her from that thought instead.

*** 

“Oh, my god, Steve,” she says on sight, making sure she sounds as exasperated as can be.

He’s _soaking wet_ , t-shirt dark, hair damp and matted down but haphazardly pushed away from his forehead—which, okay, she admits is kind of hot on him, but that’s beside the point.

“You’ve gotta believe me when I say that I have absolutely no idea what I said or did,” he replies, eyes wide and earnest as he watches her get out of her car, walk around to the trunk, and dig around the contents inside. He looks adorably clueless, and there’s an ice cube melting on his shoulder that he hasn’t noticed or shrugged off. “We were just talking about you, I think, it’s really all a blur now, but then all of a sudden she’s throwing her drink in my face and storming off.”

She doesn’t pause at that particularly interesting tidbit mentioning _her_ , and instead tosses him an old t-shirt she’s dug up from her trunk that may or may not be Clint’s to use to dry himself off. “Wait. Why were you talking about me?”

He flushes, just a tiny bit. Then he shrugs. “Like I said, it’s all a blur. I think she might’ve asked me how it was like working with you?”

Natasha decides against questioning him, instead watching idly as he dabs the t-shirt against his chest, around his neck, and then finally musses his hair with it. When he pulls it back the blonde strands are sticking up in all directions, and she can’t help but reach a hand up and smooth them down. If she likes the way he looks at her then a little too much, she’ll never admit it.

She does, however, agree when he offers, “Wanna go get hot dogs in Central Park? It’s sunny out. The walk’ll help my clothes dry.”

***

“The restaurant I recommended gave her near-instant food poisoning,” Steve says as he slides into her car. He shrugs, a bit disappointed. “I’m not counting on seeing her again. Shame, I actually liked her.”

Natasha grips the wheel tighter and tries not to let it show that she’s clenching her jaw. She doesn’t even know what’s got her so tightly wound in the first place.

“Anyway,” Steve sighs, not noticing her mood. “Where’d we leave off on _The Walking Dead_?”

*** 

They skirt around the ballroom, eyes scanning the crowd for their target over each other’s shoulders but maintaining their cover of exclusively being interested in one another. Steve’s gotten exceptionally better at dancing, Natasha notes, and a little (okay, a large) part of her is smug knowing that he’s learned these moves because _she’s_ taught him, on days off from missions in his living room, the furniture pushed back, or in the gym when they’re sure nobody’s going to walk in on them. And she’s even more satisfied knowing that he’s never showcased his newfound skills for any other girl on any of those ill-fated dates. He would’ve told her, after all, since she’s somehow become his designated pick-up for every date she sets him up on—

“Oh, I meant to tell you,” Steve starts, voice cutting her out of her daydreaming. It’s really unprofessional of her, actually, considering they’re on the job. “I’ve got a date this Friday. One that I actually got on my own.”

Natasha can’t help the way she tenses, but it happens while he twirls her so he doesn’t feel the tautness in her shoulders. She does squeeze his fingers a little harder on accident, but he hardly notices.

“Yeah?” She manages, somehow keeping the edge of unease she’s feeling all of a sudden out of her voice. Again, he doesn’t notice.

Instead he grins, like he’s proud. He should be—he has every right to be; this is a big step for him. But why does she feel like crap? She should be proud of him, too. This has pretty much been her goal all along, right?

“Yeah,” he replies, still smiling. “I met her at the VA earlier this week when I went to meet Sam for lunch. She’s nice. I think she’s the type of girl you’d try to set me up with.”

She knows he means that last part as a joke, so she forces out a small laugh and says, “Given your track record with the past girls I’ve recommended…”

“I know, I know. But I have a good feeling about this one.”

“That’s great, Steve,” she says softly. She can’t stand the hopeful smile on his face and it makes her feel terrible, because it _is_ great. For him, at least. For her…

“Heads up, I spot our target,” he says all of a sudden, cutting off that last train of thought. She doesn’t have long to consider where it had been going in the first place (in fact, she’s not even sure she wants to) before he continues. “Let’s split up, flank him on either side and try to subdue him away from the guests.”

Natasha slips into mission mode and doesn’t think about the apprehension she feels in the pit of her stomach until they’re back on the quinjet, their target successfully detained and the mission completed. When Steve suggests late-night pizza over at his place, she tries to ignore how disappointed he looks when she declines.

***

That Friday, Steve doesn’t call Natasha asking for a ride home and she spends the day more or less sulking. She refuses to admit it, and she refuses to actually sulk even more, so she calls Clint and demands more than suggests they go to a nearby bar for a few drinks.

They end up at a club.

Clubs usually aren’t her scene—they’re too crowded to properly offer a smooth chance of exit if one is needed, the music, more often than not, is in poor taste, and her looks warrant much unwanted attention. They’re also loud, but it’s the kind of loud that makes it hard to hear your own thoughts and even easier to ignore your tribulations, which, right now, sounds ideal.

Clint doesn’t ask her what her problem is, just complies when she drags him to the bar, orders more shots of alcohol than two people should probably start out with, and then pulls off to the dance floor. They don’t dance like her and Steve do in private, to old jazz songs that he doesn't fully realize he's humming along to. This dance is almost mean, but Clint can old his own. The drinks are even meaner, but Natasha’s never been a lightweight.

After, she makes Clint sleep over at her place, and he’s too drunk to argue. She shoves him on to the couch, throws an old blanket and pillow at him, and then shuffles into her own bedroom and collapses on to the bed. For the next ten hours, she plans on being dead to the world—and, to hell with it, Steve and his date. She may or may not have some messages from him, but she turned her cell off as soon as she stepped into that club. She can admit now, on the brink of unconsciousness and deep into inebriation, that she _hates_ the idea of him dating. She hates even more that she’s pushed him to this point, because she’d been compensating for something this whole time by setting him up with those girls she knew that, in the end, wouldn’t work out with him.

Most of all, she hates that it may be too late.

Natasha leaves her apartment the next morning for a mission briefing with Fury, having placed a note on the coffee table for Clint to see considering he was still asleep by the time she was heading out. When she arrives at Fury’s office, she’s surprised to see that Steve’s not there. It’s not like they come as a set now—hell, her career is built up on her own solo reputation—but she’s been working as his partner for the past eight months and the thought of going into the field without him seems… weird.

She inwardly shakes her head at her own ridiculousness. She did fine without Steve Rogers before. She’ll do fine now.

Besides, he’s probably enjoying the morning after.

“Agent Romanoff,” Fury greets once she gathers her wits and steps inside, “It’s been a while since you’ve done deep cover work, don’t you think?”

She clasps her hands in front of her waist and straightens. “Yes, sir.”

An hour later and she’s sitting in the back of a quinjet, one of the smaller issue ones reserved for solo ops—they’re quicker and quieter, and only fit three people: a pilot, a co-pilot, and a field agent. She’s been to Lucerne before, and she’s worked with this team of agents—no matter how small—before, so she’ll be good. Sitwell’s acting as her handler back at HQ. She’s even got an extraction plan.

That’s why, when things go to shit, she’s not at all surprised. There’s a reason why she and Clint never had them, after all.

Her German must need some brushing up on, because not even a whole week into her supposed “deep cover” mission that cover is quickly compromised during an attempted seduction of her target, a German nuclear weapons smuggler with a glass eye and penchant for torture. He’s young, ruthless, and, unfortunately for her, perceptive. She hasn’t even gotten him to buy her a drink before she slips up in her accent and tips him off. Five seconds later, she’s surrounded by a handful of thugs with guns and itching trigger fingers.

That’s not the part that worries her, at the end of it all. She’s taken out men while unarmed and still tied up to a chair, thank you very much, and a small group of henchmen are no match to her when she’s got a gun, a garrote, and a few knives trapped to either thigh. No, the part that worries her is the fact that she’d screwed up and got herself into this position in the first place. This never happened to her before, at least not on accident. She’s usually better than this.

As she drops the last thug and hones in on her mission objective with an unforgiving scowl, she knows why she’s off her game. Her mind hasn’t been entirely clear this past week, not since she last saw Steve. And as she knocks out the weapons smuggler and drags him off for an interrogation, she decides that if she wants her life to go back to normal, she needs to settle things with Steve once and for all. For now though, she’s got a mission to wrap up and an unpleasant debriefing to face.

***

Natasha’s far from transparent, but Fury hasn’t gotten where he is now by being anything less than observant. That eye doesn’t hinder him. And he doesn’t hold anything back, at least not when it comes to telling people to get themselves together. The only reason why she’s not actually reprimanded for screwing up the mission is that, in the end, she actually got what she needed from her target. As always. Just to be an ass, and also because she knows Fury will appreciate her sarcasm no matter what, on the way out, she says, “Next time, don’t give me an extraction plan.”

Clint’s gone when she gets home, but so is majority of the contents in her refrigerator—which hadn’t been that full in the first place, so she’s not entirely irritated. She finds the note she’d left for Clint a few days ago flipped over and pinned to her fridge door telling her that she needs to stock her kitchen with more than old takeout and expired cereal or else she’s at a loss of a best friend. She smirks, rolls her eyes, and goes to make a cup of coffee.

She doesn’t actually get to, because there’s a knock on her door before she can.

“Hey,” Steve says after a few long minutes she spent debating opening the door. He’s trying to make his smile fully friendly, but she knows him enough to tell when he’s anxious. It’s in the lack of confidence in his leer, the slight raise of his eyebrows. “Um. What happened?”

The question briefly takes her aback, but then Steve gestures at her eye and the tension slightly eases out of her shoulders. “The guy got a lucky shot in,” she answers. Her target had head-butted her during the interrogation. She didn’t let him get away with it.

Steve nods stiffly. “I came by two days ago to check up on you, since I hadn’t heard from you in almost a week.” She knows that he doesn’t mean that last part to be a personal jab, but she flinches at the words all the same. “I caught Clint eating all of your food. He said you’d been sent out on an op.”

“It was last minute. And it all went to shit, anyways. But hey—mission complete.” She slowly steps to the side. “Did you want to come in? I was just going to make some coffee….”

Steve jolts, eyes brightening like he hadn’t expected her to invite him in. “Yeah. Coffee sounds good, thanks.”

Natasha turns and leaves the door open, not waiting for him to come inside before heading back into the kitchen. Now that he’s in her space again she can _feel_ his presence in the room, even if she’s got her back to him. She can feel his eyes on her even more. The weight of his gaze makes her feel equally uncomfortable and at ease, like she’s playing a game she’s played a million times before but the rules have suddenly changed. She tries to ignore it and moves for the cabinet holding her coffee mugs, only Steve stops her with his fingers loosely wrapped around her wrist.

She doesn’t turn to look at him. He’s not touching her anywhere else but he’s in her space; she can feel his breath lightly dusting the back of her neck, pushing a small shiver down her spine, one she half-hopes he doesn’t notice.

“I—I didn’t come here for coffee, Nat,” he admits quietly. “When I came by the other day, I talked to Clint about more than just your op.” She stiffens, and Steve slowly removes his hand, but doesn’t back away enough to give her ample opportunity to flee from this conversation.

“Clint doesn’t like being pulled into other people’s personal business,” she says without malice. It’s a matter of fact. Clint’s loyal to those he cares about, and it’s only the truth when she says that he will _stay_ loyal to her before he ever talks to Steve about her personal crap, no matter how close they’ll grow.

However, Clint’s also like Fury—he’s not above telling people to get their shit together, and Steve happens to be a part of that right now.

“No, he doesn’t,” Steve replies. “But he cares about you. And he told me that the both of us were being stupid, and when I asked him why he thought that, he called me an oblivious moron.” He scoffs in amusement at that last part, but it’s short. “And then we talked. Natasha, c’mon, look at me. Please.”

She slowly turns around, and even then it takes her a few moments to actually bring up her eyes and look at him. When she does, he’s wearing that same nervous smile, but there’s a hopefulness in his eyes that makes her chest warm despite her own anxieties.

Even though she already knows the answer, she musters up enough courage to ask, “What did you talk about?”

“Clint wasn’t wrong when he said I’m an oblivious moron,” he says rather quickly on a deep breath, like that simple exhalation is also dispelling all of his nervousness. “And he didn’t just mean that I was unaware of what you setting me up on those dumb dates really meant. I also wasn’t unaware of how I… felt about you.

“When we first met, we were being thrown into battle almost right off the bat. You were my teammate. And then afterwards, you were my partner.  We got to know each other so gradually that I didn’t notice what was happening. I saw everything we did together as just two colleagues hanging out.” He takes in another deep breath, working himself up to the next part. “I guess I just didn’t realize that the amount of time you and I spent together outside of work? That wasn’t ‘just colleagues’. I compartmentalized it like that because that’s all I thought I knew with you. And it probably didn’t help that you kept setting me up with all those women…”

He lets out a small laugh and Natasha shakes her head, smiling despite herself. “Clint might’ve explained to me, but… why _did_ you set me up with those women even if you never actually wanted me to date them in the first place?”

Natasha purses her lips and glances away, but it doesn’t take her long to decide that the truth is the best route to take. “To be honest? I don’t know. At first, I genuinely thought I just wanted you to get out more.”

“But then?” He gently prompts when she doesn’t continue for a few moments.

“Then I guess I just got scared, afraid of how I… felt about you, too,” she finishes on a sigh, averting her gaze again. She feels open and raw. She doesn’t talk about things like this when she can avoid it, which is pretty damn often. But hell, look where avoiding things has gotten her now. “I’m telling the truth when I say that I didn’t realize at first either. It took me a while. And then I freaked out and avoided you. I’m sorry.”

“It didn’t work out, you know,” Steve says all of a sudden. She glances up at him. “Me and the girl from the VA? Halfway through the date I realized I started talking more about you than myself. I called you to pick me up afterward but you were—”

“Being stupid?” She prompts.

He cracks a small smile. “To be fair, I was being a moron.”

She smiles too, but it’s short and quickly dimmed by the uncertainty she feels in her gut. “Are we really doing this?” she asks quietly. “You and me?”

“I’d like to,” he replies, sounding so genuine that it makes her cheeks warm. He slowly inches closer to her, almost like he’s afraid that any quick movements will scare her off. “Wanna know the real reason why I came here? Besides settling this, that is.”

“Yes,” she answers breathily as he comes even closer.

“I wanted to ask you out on a date. Which, okay, I know sounds kind of stupid considering we’ve sort of been going on dates all along, depending on your view. I mean, you did give me private dancing lessons and we’ve gone out to dinner more times than I can count on both hands, but… this time we’ll both know it’s really happening. So, Natasha Romanoff, will you go on a date with me?”

She can’t help but crack a grin. “That’s corny, Rogers.” He laughs. “But yeah, I’d like that.”

“Good. And I was thinking…” He comes even closer, leaning down some. “That considering we’ve already technically been on our first, second, third, fourth, _so on_ , dates…”

“Depending on your point of view?” She inputs amusedly.

“Right, exactly, depending on your point of view. Since we’ve already done all that, it wouldn’t be too forward if I kissed you right now?”

She hums, pretending to contemplate. “Depending on your point of view, no, I don’t think it would.”

“Perfect. Because I’m gonna do that now,” he says, leaning down.

“Then do it,” she smirks.

“I am!”

“From _this_ point of view, it looks like you’re doing more talking than kissing.”

“ _Nat—mmph!_ ”

He’s cut off by her lips crushing against his, unforgiving and unwilling to stop now that they’re finally kissing after all this time. It takes him a brief moment to respond, but Steve works well on improvisation and quick actions, so it’s not long before he’s sliding his palms to her waist and kissing her back so hard that her knees go weak. And when she opens her mouth and his tongue strokes gently inside, she all but melts into him.

When they part, their breathing is only mildly unsteady.

“Okay, wow,” Steve says after a moment.

“No kidding,” Natasha agrees. “I think we’ve been on enough dates to do that again. And a few more times after that.”

“Depending on your point of view?” He smirks.

“Shut _up_ ,” she says breathily, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading <3 leave prompts, and if they inspire me enough, i'll fill and add them to this fic!


	2. role-reversal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "If I might suggest a prompt, how about a role-reversal? Like, Steve was raised in the Red Room and whatnot, Natasha was given the serum (in terms of physiology they'd be mostly the same, as Nat has a version of the serum in her own body). I find the idea of Nat being this blushing all-American and Steve this sort of detatched, calculating assassin absolutely hilarious (not to say I don't adore them both already) and I love the way you write."
> 
> for **AJ_Lenoire**.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I hope I did this justice! It was actually really _really_ hard writing Natasha as anything other than... well, Natasha. And I sort of tweaked a few things, but I hope you like it!

Natasha observes Steve, notes all of that muscle and height and strength he has under his belt, and can’t believe he still fights and moves so agilely, like a cat—if that cat had an eight pack and thighs of hard, corded muscle, that is. He always lands on his feet, and hardly makes a sound. He throws himself into battle, into the direst of situations, and comes out alive. Hell, even Tony had made a joke about Steve’s nine lives.

She’s five-foot-three and dainty to the eye, but she can punch hard enough to make a dent into the side of a tank. Steve’s body and the fluidity it holds despite his size shouldn’t be a surprise to her, yet it’s as shocking as it is amazing. And it interests her to no end.

This is why, after they’ve finally managed to catch their breaths after the Battle of New York, she wastes no time in getting him into the ring for a few sparring matches. She even makes him laugh by promising she’ll go easy on him, but she can’t hide the slight tint to her cheeks that appears when he just smirks and gets a look in his eyes that she can only describe as suggestive and says, _oh, easy’s never fun._

The innuendos throw her off, at first. What throws her off even more is that they don’t sound sleazy to her, not like the type men would say to her because they think some nasty joke will make her want to sleep with them later. Steve’s not like that—she’s seen the way his fists tighten whenever someone treats him like a piece of meat, even if his face stays impassive. But the way he flirts with her is casual, not meant to make you feel outstandingly special. He flirts with everyone on the team. It’s tactical. It’s a way to gauge people’s reactions, how easy they are; it’s a way to find any weaknesses if he needs to play off them later, for whatever reason. It’s a defense mechanism.

As soon as Natasha realizes this, about four sparring sessions after their first and many, many moments quietly observing him in group functions (even though he’s perceptive enough that he probably knows she’s watching him), she decides not to question him about it. They all have their own type of dark pasts, and it’s definitely not her place to ask about them.

*** 

“I’ve read your file.” They’ve called it a day from training five minutes ago, and Steve says this randomly yet casually as he takes a seat beside her on the gym floor and downs a bottle of water in four long pulls.

“Everyone’s seen my file,” she scoffs. “I have an exhibit in the Smithsonian.”

“Which I’ve yet to visit, by the way. How a Russian woman became an American icon is beyond me.”

“Russian _immigrant_ ,” she corrects. “I came here when I was nine. And it was still the USSR, back then.”

“I know. Like I said, I’ve read your file,” he says with a grin. “Have you read mine?”

“No.”

“But Fury offered it to you.” It’s not a question.

“Yes.” She shrugs, then looks at him. His eyes are open, but they’re still guarded, like they always are. She doesn’t know what he wants to hear from her, but she prides herself on her honesty. “I didn’t read any of your files, not beyond standard information like name, description, and skill set. Beyond that, well, I figured that if you guys wanted to tell me about you, then that’s _up_ to you. Can’t judge a person by what you read in a neatly typed document, anyway.”

He regards her for a long moment, his gaze unreadable. It doesn’t make her uncomfortable, per se, even if she’s still having a hard time getting used to all the functionality in the world of spies. The way Steve keeps his cards close to his chest is different than the way Fury does. For Steve, it seems more ingrained; more personal. There’s a story there.

Finally, he stands up and says, “I’ll tell you about it someday, then. Over beers.”

“Even if I can’t get drunk?”

“Especially since you can’t get drunk. Means I won’t have to carry you home when you pass out. You’re heavier than you look, you know. Your body is deceiving.”

The way he says that last part makes something in her stomach flip, but she still manages to say without any stumbling, “Look who’s talking.”

***

“Someday” ends up being that Saturday, but Natasha doesn’t let herself believe that this is anything more than two friends going out for drinks, because it’s not. The bar is dark and relatively shady, but she trusts Steve’s judgment. Not even ten minutes in she realizes that she was right to, because the chicken wings are good, the mozzarella sticks are even better, and Steve is probably the only person in the world who can match her appetite bite for bite.

“You’re gonna make yourself sick,” she remarks amusedly as he finishes off their third serving of barbeque wings and reaches for a nearby basket of fries.

“Look who’s talking.” The way he smirks makes her believe that he’s parroting her words from earlier that week on purpose.

“If you’ve read my file, then you know I’ve got a huge metabolism to fuel.”

He shoots her a look. “And if you’ve read mine, then you would’ve known that my metabolism’s about as huge as yours.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve got the serum, too,” he answers, and when her eyebrows knit together, he holds up a hand and shakes his head. “Well, a version of it. A very poor version of it, considering the type of stuff you’re capable of.”

“You’re capable of some pretty impressive stuff yourself.”

“I can’t shrug off nearly as much physical damage as you do, but the compliment’s appreciated,” he replies with a grin. He shrugs. “It was given to me when I was young, by a group of rogue or otherwise dishonored American scientists and whatnot. Just a bunch of assholes whose shady interests got them kicked out of the government. They formed an underground cell of sorts, or program. The Red Room. Have you heard of it?”

“Doesn’t ring any bells.”

“Well, it’s disbanded now. But they were their own sort of sick, independent intelligence group. They used me for their dirty work.”

His face is, for the most part, blank, but the way his eyes flash doesn’t go unnoticed by her. “Steve, you don’t have to—”

“It’s alright,” he interrupts. “You deserve to know. And despite popular belief, my past isn’t need-to-know knowledge. Besides, it’s only fair—I know about yours.”

“Everyone does.”

“I’m not everyone. I’m your friend.”

That briefly catches her off guard, and she spends half a second blinking at him before smiling softly and motioning with her hand in a gesture to continue. “Then, by all means.”

He lays it all out for her. Well, not _everything_ —despite what she says, there _are_ some things that the public doesn’t know about her, about what she had to do, and she doesn’t expect Steve to spill his whole backstory to her either, no holds barred. But the importance of him telling her this much isn’t lost on her. He trusts her, she realizes, and if the fact that they’re sitting here having this conversation isn’t enough evidence of that, then the way he smiles afterwards, not the same flirty leer but with… _something else_ , makes it concrete.

“We should do this again,” Steve says to her at the end of the night.

She smiles at him. “We should.”

***

They don’t get to for a while, because the next day she comes home from her morning run and finds Fury sitting in her living room, waiting for her.

“Congratulations, Widow,” he says. “You’ve got yourself a new partner.”

She’s not surprised when Steve steps out of her kitchen right after that.

***

The missions are frequent, most of them long. Steve is lethal grace, which—again—surprises her despite his stature. She doesn’t think it’ll ever cease to surprise her, really, and she just hopes that he continues pretending like he doesn’t notice her watching him just _move_ whenever they’re fighting together.

One evening, after a particularly grueling mission is wrapped up and they’ve retreated into their separate hotel rooms to wait for mission extraction, there’s a knock on her door. She doesn’t have to look through the peephole to know that it’s Steve, but she does anyway just to avoid the sarcastic comment he’ll give her if he knows she didn’t double check.

She’s raising her eyebrow at the bottle of wine he’s holding in his hand when she opens the door.

“I can’t get drunk,” she uselessly reminds.

“Did I mention during our talk a few weeks ago that I can’t either?” He grins, and she grins too, stepping aside to let him in. He’s just got out of the shower; his hair is damp and laying over his forehead, he’s switched out his uniform in favor of a black zip-up and pair of sweats, and the whole look makes him seem oddly innocent in her eyes. She gets one look at the way his arms move and flex as he uncorks the wine bottle and is reminded that he’s far from innocent—they both are.

The thought makes her accept the half-full glass he hands her, despite her previous statement. The quick look he gives her afterward is questioning, but he doesn’t push.

“Mission ended with a bang,” he comments a few minutes later when they’re lying on top of her bed, backs resting against the headboard and with a respectable distance between them. She drinks to that, and he smiles.

“Literally,” she replies. “You know, explosions used to be my forte.”

“Explosions were _everybody’s_ forte in the war, Nat.”

“Yeah, but me and my team gave the term ‘explosions’ a whole new meaning.”

He smirks and takes a drink from his glass. “After tonight, I believe it.” He pauses and looks around her room for a moment, even though his is almost identical. “Still, you’re getting better at the whole spy thing.”

“I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or not.” She gives him a sideways look. “No offense.”

“None taken,” he replies. “This business makes you question a lot. Yourself, more than anything.”

She gently bumps her shoulder against his. “We’ve all got our ghosts, Steve.”

“I know that. And I know you do, probably more than any of us.” He tries for a smile, though she can see through most of it. “I have read your file, after all.”

The thing about Steve is that he always keeps her guessing. She likes that about him.

Maybe she’s capable of the same thing, she thinks as she kisses him.

She doesn’t mean to do anything more than just press her lips to his, but as soon as they touch she can’t stop. He curls his hand around her waist, his fingers catching on a strip of bare skin where her tank top’s lifted up. Natasha’s palm slides across his chest and somehow finds its way to his jacket’s zipper, tugging it down. Steve doesn’t stop kissing her as he shrugs out of the jacket and discards it somewhere over the edge of the bed; in fact, they don’t stop kissing until Natasha’s transponder goes off from the pocket of her uniform, discarded on the floor when she was changing earlier, and they reluctantly part with a slow smack of lips and heavy breathing.

Steve rests his head in the crook of her neck, breath hot on her skin as the loud signal resonates throughout the room. She blinks up at the ceiling over his shoulder, just now realizing that she’s ended up on her back, her tank top pushed up by Steve’s hand, which is now curved around her upper rib cage. Her own hands are gripping his biceps— _hard_ , she notices, and she winces at the thought that those bruises are gonna be pretty bad come morning.

For now, though, she lets out a sigh and says, “Fury probably wants us for debrief.”

“Mm, just when I was starting to feel the buzz,” he jokes.

She rolls her eyes. “You _can’t_ get—”

“Wasn’t talking about the wine,” he interrupts lowly in her ear, and the fact that the transponder seems like it’s getting louder and louder is the only reason why Natasha doesn’t blow protocol all to hell.

***

“We should do that again,” he says to her in the darkness of their car, headed for their new extraction point and debrief with Fury.

She smiles. “Yeah. We should.”

***

“Are we really doing this?” Natasha doesn’t know why she asks the question, because _of course they are_ , and it’s not like she wants it to end, anyway. As soon as Fury had dismissed them from his office, Steve had dragged her down to the parking garage and into a random car, heading straight for his apartment. They were hardly through the front door before he’d shoved her up against the wall, and that’s where she is now; his knee slotted between her thigs, his hand in her hair, and his mouth covering hers.

“We really are,” he returns, then he falters—she can feel it in the way his kiss gentles. “Unless you—”

“No, no,” she gasps, holding his face still when he makes to move away.

“Good,” he says, smiling.

He pecks her on the lips before nudging her jaw to the side with his nose and attaching his mouth to her neck, right on a spot she never knew was so sensitive until today. She arches against his body, slides her hands over his shoulders, and feels ridiculously giddy at getting to see his body and all of his refined strength in a new light. He smirks against her neck like he knows, but before she can say anything about it, he hauls her into his arms and carries her over to the couch.

It happens sort of fast, but she supposes if it’d happened any slower she might’ve crawled out of her skin with impatience—fast is good; fast is fitting for this moment. She doesn’t even get out of her bra before Steve’s unbuttoning her jeans and taking both them and her panties off in one go, kissing her stomach and pushing her thighs wide apart before ducking down and placing his mouth directly on her like he can’t stand to wait anymore. She knows she can’t, and she cranes her neck back as he finally licks into her.

He winds her up like a clock, until she’s gasping and struggling to find the proper friction she needs to tip over the edge. She has half a mind to just take what she wants, but Steve’s hands are firmly holding her legs apart and, despite her strength, she can’t squirm comfortably with the way her skin’s sweaty and sticking to the leather couch. Eventually Steve decides he’s had enough fun torturing her, and when he finally eases one of his hands farther up her legs and sinks a finger inside her entrance, she presses her face into the couch and tightens around him, only remembering that she’s capable of crushing his head between her thighs at the last second. The way Steve doesn’t take his mouth off of her until the aftershocks are residing and her chest is heaving tells her that he doesn’t really mind.

She doesn’t make him wait after that, despite the fact that he hadn’t shown her the same courtesy. If the way he’s breathing like a bellows is any indication that he’s close to coming, she won’t try to prolong that. She unbuckles his pants as he clumsily yanks his shirt over his head, the lack of grace unusual for him, and she’s barely got her hand in his boxers and wrapped around his cock before he’s coming, his body covering hers on the couch and his face once again pressed into her neck.

They lay there panting for a few long moments.

And then Steve’s phone rings, making him sag against her and groan.

“That’s Tony’s ringtone. I’m ignoring it.”

“Good,” she smirks. “Wanna go again?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idk how I even feel about this one, but it's almost 2 am and i'm posting it. Plus bonus smut!


	3. the king of obliviousness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "As for a prompt, how about a story where Natasha and Steve have been sleeping together for a few months and Natasha realizes that she wants to move in with Steve but doesn't want to be the one to ask and Steve is being oblivious to her hinting so she sneakily starts moving her things into his place? And about halfway through Steve starts catching on to what she's doing but is way too amused so he just lets her carry on without saying anything."
> 
> for **akaitsuki87**.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sort of tweaked it but that pretty much always happens when I fill prompts lol. I hope you enjoy it nevertheless!

Natasha slowly blinks awake, the room quiet and warm. She stretches her arms above her head, listens for her spine to crack, and spares a single glance at Steve’s still-sleeping form before silently easing out of bed and creeping to the bathroom.

She goes through the standard ritual, moving silently as to not wake her lover in the next room. Afterwards, she stands in front of the mirror and smugly observes the faint, palm-shaped bruises on her hips before dropping the hem of the oversized shirt she’s wearing and reaching for her toothbrush, right beside the sink.

Her hand swipes through the air, and she spends a few moments blinking.

Right, this isn’t her apartment. It’s Steve’s. None of her things are here.

Huh. That has to change. 

***

They’re watching re-runs of old shows, huddled together beneath a blanket in his living room, when Steve gets up from the couch and heads into his kitchen to get the both of them something to drink.

“Can you bring me back one of those chocolate puddings?”

He’s laughing a bit confusedly as he opens the refrigerator and starts to say, “I don’t have any choc—”

He stops. There’s a whole eight-pack of them sitting on the top rack, next to a carton of eggs.

Huh. He doesn’t remember buying those.

*** 

She collapses on top of him, sweaty and spent, her hair splaying across his face. That makes him frown—well, not the fact that her hair’s tickling his nose; he really likes her hair, actually. It’s the _scent_ that’s got him a bit confused at the moment.

Natasha laughs, still sounding out of breath. “Are you really sniffing me?”

“No, it’s just—” He starts, but then he feels rather than sees her lift a doubtful eyebrow and he switches tactics. “Your hair smells like it always does.”

She hums a bit dazedly. She’s probably not keeping up with their conversation all that much in her current afterglow. “You’ve waited until now to tell me that you don’t like how my hair smells?”

“ _No_ ,” he replies. Maybe she is keeping up, because she smiles teasingly against his neck. “No, I like how your hair smells. Like… peaches. And stuff.”

“Mm, I’m dating a poet.”

“You’re insufferable,” he sighs. Her laugh this time is low and lazy. “It’s just… you’ve been staying here for the last couple of days. And your hair still smells like the shampoo you always use.”

If they were in any other situation, Steve would’ve felt the way Natasha slightly tenses in his arms. Be that as it may, he’s not the only one enjoying the afterglow, and his eyes are growing increasingly heavy.

“I use a good brand,” she says finally, rolling off his body and settling into his side. “Go to sleep, Rogers.”

He does.

***

Steve’s sore and sleep-deprived from his week-long mission in Angola, sighing as he steps through his apartment door and tosses his keys on the table nearby. He starts to call out for Natasha, but what comes out instead is—

“What the hell is that?”

There’s a black blot of fur sitting at the end of the hallway, unimpressed yellow eyes staring up at him. He starts to frown, feeling oddly territorial, when Natasha comes around the corner in a tank top and pair of sweats that actually fits her, hair pulled back in a lazy, low bun.

“What, you’ve never seen a cat before?”

“Of course I’ve—why’s it here?” He’s not angry, just a bit confused in his exhausted state.

She shrugs, watching idly as the cat finally turns away from Steve and moves to weave between her legs. Its whole demeanor changes. Steve can hear the loud purr from where he’s standing, watching too as it rubs up against her pants.

“I found it on your fire escape,” she explains. “It looked hungry, so I gave it some food. And then it kept coming back. I figured you wouldn’t mind.”

He doesn’t, actually. “Okay,” he says.

She looks a little surprised, but doesn’t try to push her luck. “His name is Liho.”

“Alright, Liho,” Steve says, watching the cat peer up at him with what can only be labeled as disdain. _He’s_ the one being territorial now, sitting between Natasha’s feet. “You know you’re going to have to share her, right?”

***

“Cap, I didn’t know you were a green thumb,” Tony says, and Steve follows his gaze to the living room, where there’s a small pot of violets resting on the end table beside his couch. Weirdly enough, he hadn’t noticed they were there until now.

“Those aren’t—”

“No, I get it, I get it,” Tony cuts him off, waving his hand in the air. “When Pepper first moved in with me, I started to find all types of new stuff around the mansion. Fashion magazines. A whole _array_ of hair dryers, straighteners, and curlers. Plants. Of course, this was before the mansion got blown all to hell—along with that rabbit. You know, I thought that was a pretty damn good present. I mean, if _I_ got a giant rabbit, I’d…”

As the other man rambles on, Steve tunes him out, staring at the pot of violets with knitted eyebrows. They look like they’ve been tended to quite well. They’re really nice, actually, and aren’t violets supposed to be scentless? Maybe that’s why he’s never noticed them.

Tony shifts, still talking and totally unaware that Steve’s not hearing one word he’s saying as he gestures around with his hands. Something over the engineer’s shoulder catches Steve’s eye; discarded in the hallway like they’d been kicked off after a long day at work and subsequently forgotten about are a pair of black high-heels, ones that he has, in fact, seen Natasha wear quite a few times.

He frowns some more and totally abandons Tony and his one-sided conversation, marching down the hallway, past the high-heels, and straight into his bedroom. There’s another set of heels and a pair of knee-high boots peeking out from under his bed, but he ignores that for now and goes straight to his dresser, yanking open the one spare drawer he’d mostly used for socks he couldn’t pair or ties he rarely used and finds—

“Ah,” he hears Tony say. Steve hadn’t even realized he’d followed him, and he supposes that he should be embarrassed that he’s standing in front his open dresser with fistfuls of his girlfriend’s lacy undergarments gripped in his hands, but he really can’t muster anything besides a combination of—confused revelation.

Tony pats him on the shoulder. “Big guy, you are truly the King of Obliviousness.”

Despite all of the thoughts currently running around his head, Steve still manages to give his friend a glare.

***

Against his better judgment, Steve doesn’t bring any of it up to Natasha the next time he sees her. She comes home a few hours after Tony’s left, looking no worse for wear from the brief mission she’d been sent out on late last night. She’s got an extra bag with her, one he doesn’t remember seeing when she left, but he doesn’t question it as he kisses her on the forehead and says he’ll start dinner while she gets cleaned up.

He waits a few minutes after he hears the bathroom door shut and the shower running before abandoning his half-chopped vegetables on the cutting board and tip-toeing into his room, spotting Natasha’s bags on the bed. He doesn’t root around the duffel she always uses on missions, but he does eye the one extra bag with interest. He doesn’t know what he expects to find inside, and he sort of feels terrible for being this nosy, but when he opens the bag he can’t help but choke back a laugh when he sees the collection of scented candles, books, and—okay, this is what really makes him laugh—a concealable handgun inside.

“What’s so funny?”

Even though he’s been pretty much caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Steve can’t help but laugh harder, because Natasha’s standing in front of him wearing a silk robe that is _definitely_ not his—and how he hadn’t noticed she’d snuck that here from her own place earlier is beyond him, but, _god_ , he really _is_ oblivious.

“I think I’m going blind in my old age,” he says, and although it’s a joke that’d normally bolster a smirk out of her, all she does is stand with her hands on her hips with an eyebrow raised. He realizes then that he’s still got her gun in his hand, and he sets it back down. “Uh, well. I can explain?”

She makes a face at him.

“No, really. Come here.”

She doesn’t at first, regarding him doubtfully. All things considered, _Natasha_ should be the one doing the explaining, but Steve’s already on to her and they both know she probably never would had he stayed oblivious forever, anyway. She comes over to him with a small sigh once he holds his arms out for her, standing between his knees. He leans his chin against her stomach and looks up at her, smiling when she relents and winds her arms around his neck.

“So, like I said, I was blind,” he starts. “I didn’t even notice the flowers.”

Her fingers pause where they’re playing with the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Or all the shoes, or the makeup bag in my bathroom, or the totally processed TV dinners in my freezer that’re probably making my Ma roll in her grave. That should’ve alerted something in me from the very start, but I’m apparently the King of Obliviousness, so,” he continues when she doesn’t say anything, going rather stiff against him. “To be fair, I _did_ notice the shampoo.”

She still doesn’t say anything, but she relaxes a bit. Steve can practically hear the gears turning in her head.

He decides to put it plainly.

Or at least he tries to, because Natasha beats him to it.

“We need to talk,” she finally says, interrupting him with a long, resolute sigh. Steve’s mouth immediately shuts, and he nods. “We’ve been seeing each other for a while. And I was thinking, maybe, if I could move in with you.”

Steve sags against her, pressing his face to her midsection. “Geez, I thought you’d never ask. I probably would’ve rambled forever otherwise.”

“You’re cute when you’re nervous,” she says. She bites her lip. “Is that a yes?”

“ _Yes_ , god, yes,” he replies, leaning back on the bed and pulling her down with him. He slides his hand into her still-damp hair, bringing their mouths together for a long kiss. “I mean, you kind of already are living with me,” he adds once they part.

“I was getting around to _actually_ asking,” she admits.

He scoffs amusedly. “Of course. Right after you’ve already moved all your stuff in, that is.”

“ _Ass_ ,” she says, whacking him on the shoulder. He laughs, holding her tighter and nuzzling against her collarbone. “I do have something to confess, though.”

“What is it?”

“I didn’t find Liho on your fire escape.” She hesitates. “He was already mine.”

“I _thought_ I remembered seeing a cat bowl back at your place. No wonder why he already hated me.”

She kisses him again, laughing against his lips. “He’ll come around once he sees how much I like you.”

“Oh, you like me?” He tries for a coy look, but his smirk is too smug for it to actually work.

“Hmm. Kind of. Maybe.”

Steve grins, tracing his thumb along her bottom lip.

“That works for me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to leave prompts! Thanks for reading <3


	4. worse ways to go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Where else am I gonna get a view like this?”
> 
> He looks at her like he knows the answer, but doesn’t say anything. He just curls his fingers under her chin, lifts her head up, and kisses her like it’s the last time he’ll ever get to do it.
> 
> for **akaitsuki87**.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! I was having major internet connectivity problems and a little laptop malfunctioning, but things are better now. Also, to akaitsuki87, I hope you like this. I suck at angst and I deviated from the prompt like always, but I gave it a go nevertheless.

It all happens very fast. That notion just makes her all the angrier, because she hates clichés. And she doesn’t want to be made one, not when this might be her very last moment in this world.

Still, though. The cliché part is not what’s bothering her the most. It’s the part where she can’t find Steve amidst all the chaos—there are slivers of shiny metal flying above and wreaking havoc, there are screaming, frightened civilians trying desperately to run to safety, and the goddamned _city_ is being lifted into the air, but, funny enough, the thing that’s making her absolutely _fret_ is that Rogers is nowhere to be found.

It’s another cliché, she supposes, that when she’s potentially facing death, she wants her boyfriend’s face to be the last thing she sees. If this is her last day on earth, she wants to be right next to Steve. He’s had so many people ripped away from him before he could give a proper goodbye, so many friends and loved ones. The world, she thinks, is ungrateful of Steve Rogers. And it is terribly, terribly cruel to him.

A thud lands behind her, and she lets herself believe for a split-second that it’s who she wants it to be. But a split-second is all she needs to hear the whir of machinery, and not much longer than that, a gravely, mechanical voice starts to address her.

_Ultron_.

“Enjoying the view, Widow?”

It’s something Stark would probably say. Stark, who is zooming through the air like a bullet, half a dozen robots right on his tail. She spares a moment to watch him disappear beneath the city, and Rhodey’s there, blasting one of the Ultrons to pieces while Vision slices through the other five like it’s nothing. They move on, flying over a thicket of robots being absolutely demolished by the Hulk. And out the corner of her eye, she sees the flutter of Thor’s cape as he, too, launches into the air and follows Stark’s trail.

Still no Steve.

“Not entirely,” she says thickly, turning around.

“I do have to admit, the atmosphere is growing thin. Getting hard to breathe, you know how it is,” he pauses, waving his arms around. “Of course, _I_ don’t—robots don’t have lungs, after all.”

He inches towards her, and even though Natasha is thinking _this is it_ , she doesn’t give Ultron the satisfaction of stepping back. She knows she has no chance against this single robot; she’s all out of bullets and she used her last stinger on a robot that had been antagonizing a family two minutes ago. Any makeshift weapons are out of her reach, and she’s stuck between Ultron and the very edge of central Sokovia. Her mind is racing, she’s whispering a thousand-and-one apologizes to Steve in her head, but she keeps a straight face and her dignity intact.

“What, no fight? I’m disappointed,” says Ultron, stalking closer.

She opens her mouth to respond, but then—

Then, with a loud crackle and a noise that could almost be considered a gurgle, the robot is impaled by some sort of wayward debris and falls forward to the ground.

Steve’s shield, dirty and scorched, is lodged in its back.

“Nat!” Her eyes dart up and he’s running right for her. His face is soot-stained and creased in worry, but he’s _there_. She finds it in herself to meet him halfway, but before she can even say anything, Steve’s wrapping his arms around her and pulling her flush against his body. “Jesus, I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Friday hasn’t been able to raise your comms. Are you okay?”

She blinks against his shoulder, hugging him tighter. “I thought I was going to die.” _And I couldn’t find you_.

He pulls back to look at her, a solemn expression on his face. “Stark’s found a way to blow this rock,” he says somberly.

“Then we need to get clear.”

“Not till everyone’s safe,” he says, lips flattening into a determined, thin line. She watches his face for a moment, and he must take her expression wrong because he adds on even more stoutly, “I’m not leaving one civilian on here.”

“I didn’t say we should leave,” she amends. He glances sharply at her, a tinge of surprise in his gaze. She shrugs lightly. “There’s worse ways to go.” She angles her body towards the skyline, keeping her arms wrapped tightly around Steve’s waist. “Where else am I gonna get a view like this?”

He looks at her like he knows the answer, but doesn’t say anything. He just curls his fingers under her chin, lifts her head up, and kisses her like it’s the last time he’ll ever get to do it.

*** 

Another cliché, maybe, is that it’s the cover of a tabloid magazine that outs them. Neither she or Steve were expecting any security cameras in Sokovia to still be in _working order_ when it happened, nor were they exactly worried about that sort of thing in the first place. They thought they were going to die. They kissed because of it. Natasha doesn’t really regret anything, and she knows Steve certainly doesn’t either.

Well, that’s a lie. They both regret that Stark happens to be at the facility when the magazine hits the streets and blows up on nearly every entertainment channel on television, because if there’s one person on the team who’d be the most offended that she and Steve kept their relationship a secret, it's Tony.

Right off the bat, Bruce tells him it had been none of their business. It works for about two seconds before Tony notices the wide smirk on Sam’s face and says, “ _You_ knew?”

“You try being on the run from Hydra with just the two of them and _not_ being the most badass third wheel that ever lived,” Sam says.

“This has been going on for _that long?_ ” Tony gapes.

“No,” Steve is quick to amend. “No, it hasn’t.”

“Lay off, Tony.” Rhodey’s leaning against the counter in the recreational area, his arms crossed over his chest and giving his friend a stern look.

“Hey, you caught me kissing Pepper on a rooftop like a peeping tom. I wasn’t hiding anything from you.”

Rhodey rolls his eyes. “I wasn’t not peep—you know what, no, I’m not even gonna try to argue with you.”

“Because I’m correct and, simultaneously, friends with a pervert?”

“ _You’re_ the pervert,” Rhodey argues, despite his previous statement. “Why’re you so fixated on their love life, anyway? Got a secret thing for Cap we don’t know about?”

“Alright, now we’re just getting hurtful,” Tony says. “If Pepper were here, she’d—”

“Scold you,” Natasha inputs.

Tony closes his mouth and ponders that thought for all but half a second. “Yeah, actually, you’re right. She never takes my side. She likes to see you win every time we argue, Red.”

“Same here,” Rhodey says.

Sam nods. “Ditto.”

Bruce hums. Wanda doesn’t say anything, _hasn’t_ said anything, rather, but they all know that she hasn’t warmed up to Stark just yet. Vision observes the entire ordeal with unassuming curiosity.

“Okay, I get your guys’ point. Nothing has really changed. Cap and Widow are dating, but all of my friends are still traitors. And Thor’s not here right now, but that hammer’s still rigged. I’m conceding. Are you happy?”

“ _Yes_ ,” everybody says at once.

“Fine. But for the record?” Tony turns to her and Steve, face softening in a grin. “I _am_ glad for you two.”


	5. Get Well Soon!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She opens her eyes, peering up at him from under her lashes, and deliberately slides the spoon from between her lips at a slow pace. Steve makes that sound again, and really, if she didn’t feel like shit? Nothing’d stop her from riding her boyfriend into the couch as Lucy Liu kicks serious ass in the background.
> 
> for **asukachan07**.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you requested sick!nat + sexy times, and i provided :) there's also some movie-version charlie's angels references in here, because i couldn't resist.

Look, Natasha will be the last person in the room to accuse a professional of being wrong. She’s been underestimated too many times in her line of work to do that to anybody else, honestly, but the first thing she tells Steve as soon as they get back in the car from her appointment is—

“That doctor’s full of shit.”

Steve grunts a small laugh, shaking his head as he puts the key in the ignition and starts the car. She huffs, if only to conceal the sigh of relief she wants to let out at the warm air from the vents blasting against her face.

“You’re kidding, right?”

She narrows her eyes at him, shoving her hands under her arms because, okay, it’s still pretty damn cold. Never mind the fact that it’s rather sunny outside and Steve’s only wearing a thin sweater and pair of shorts. _She_ doesn’t have a serum pumping through her veins to keep her constantly heated, thank you very much. At least not to that degree.

“I don’t _kid_ , Rogers. Not about the flu. Which I don’t have, by the way, because that doctor is completely wrong.”

“Well, for starters, you don’t have the flu,” Steve says with a little eye roll. Normally he’s on the receiving end of that move from her, but she guesses there’s always a first time for everything. “It’s the common cold. _That_ you do have, and I’ve already let Hill know that you need a few days off to recuperate.”

She frowns. “Rogers, I’m fine.”

Steve lets out a little hum, one that only makes her frown harder, and pulls away from the curb. “Whatever you say, _babe_.” Oh, she’s gonna kill him for that one. He only uses pet names sarcastically and when he’s about to do something against her wishes. “But we’re still stopping by the pharmacy on our way home to pick up some medicines. Just in case.”

And because he’s an undercover asshole, he crowns the sentence with a wink.

She’s making him pay for everything. There’s no way in hell she’s going to waste her money on over expensive and ass-tasting cough syrup for a cold that _she does not have,_ doctor’s note be damned _._

By the time they pull up to the Walgreens down the street from their apartment, Natasha is shivering, body aching and covered in a thin sheen of cold sweat.

“You alright there?”

“Shut up,” she grovels. “And get me the lemon cough drops.”

Steve grins. “Ma’am, yes ma’am.”

*** 

Natasha doesn’t give Steve the satisfaction of letting him carry her up to their apartment, though the three flights of stairs she has to climb up come damn near to killing her. She doesn’t protest when he insists on walking behind her, and she even bites back a quip when she feels his hands brush against her ass, hovering there to catch her just in case she falls. The innuendo is on the tip of her tongue, but so is the remnants of the honey-lemon cough drop she’d popped in her mouth on the ride over, so she crunches down on that instead.

It takes all of her strength not to collapse on the couch as soon as she steps foot in the apartment. Instead, she gracefully lowers herself down on the center cushion. The amused look Steve gets on his face as he watches her indicates it had been anything but.

“Shut up,” she tells him again.

He laughs, anyway. “I wasn’t going to say anything. You want some soup?”

She tells him no, but she doesn’t stop him when she hears him chopping vegetables in the kitchen, water bubbling softly in a pot. A large part of her wants to nudge him out the way and shove her face in front of the steam, but she results to straining for the television remote on the coffee table and flicking on Netflix. She tells Steve to shut up again when he snorts at her choice of _Charlie’s Angels._

“It’s a classic,” she argues. “Where do you think half of my moves come from, Rogers?”

He laughs loudly at that, knows she’s only joking, and she can’t help the tiny grin she gets on her face despite herself. She _loves_ his laugh. Quite frankly, he sounds like an absolute dork. If she has to be like a lump on the couch for the next couple of days, achy and gross, at least she can still hear Steve’s dumb laugh. And she can’t exactly complain about the cooking, because—

“God, that’s good.” She moans around the spoon in her mouth.

Steve makes a strangled noise where he’s standing in front of her. “Seriously, please don’t tempt me.”

She opens her eyes, peering up at him from under her lashes, and deliberately slides the spoon from between her lips at a slow pace. Steve makes that sound again, and really, if she didn’t feel like shit? Nothing’d stop her from riding her boyfriend into the couch as Lucy Liu kicks serious ass in the background.

But she _does_ feel like shit, and Steve knows it, so he just settles in beside her and pulls the blanket he’d dragged off his bed up around their bodies. Natasha scarfs the soup down, slurping loudly at the end to make Steve chuckle, before melting into his body, her head in his lap.

She falls asleep like this, on the revelation that Steve Rogers is, by all rights, her Pete.

*** 

“I can bathe myself, you know.”

Steve hums, loosely wrapping his fingers around her ankle and lifting her leg so that he can wash the back of her calf. Really, the gentle caresses and the brushes of his soapy fingers on her skin is only making her want to crawl _out_ of it, and by the way Steve’s sweats are tenting, she’s not the only one who’s turned on beyond belief. But she’d waken up that morning feeling even worse than the day before, and Steve had insisted that the steam would make her feel better. She didn’t try to argue, if only because she knows that he’s had more than enough experience being sick, and the sooner she shakes off this cold the better.

She seriously hates that all she wants to do is sleep after this, because Steve’s eyes darken considerably as he slides his hand higher up her leg to wash the inside of her thigh.

By the time he gets to her breasts, he seriously looks like he’s going to give up on his self-restraint. Natasha arches into his grasp when he brushes his thumb over one of her nipples, eyes fluttering shut and a whole different kind of warmth collecting between her legs. Steve licks his lips, watching her intently, and Natasha tilts her head back, giving him more room.

Only it’s futile, because she ends up coughing nastily and Steve pulls back to grab her mug of tea off the edge of the bathroom counter.

“ _God_ , I hate being sick,” she hisses after she gulps down half the drink.

*** 

On the third day, Sam stops by to go over work with Steve, and Natasha tries to pretend like she’s a lump on the bed not to be disturbed if only because she looks like shit and solely wants her boyfriend to have the privilege of seeing her like this. But Sam is one of the most genuine people she’s ever met, and one time she saw him when he was in the middle of fighting the stomach flu, so she guesses fair is only fair.

Plus, he comes bearing gifts.

“My mom’s gumbo,” he announces, holding the container up like it’s a trophy. “Extra love, extra spicy.”

“Extra _mine_ ,” she says firmly, because Steve sort of looks like a puppy begging at the dinner table. “Don’t you have work to do, Rogers?”

Steve doesn’t have the decency not to pout. “Fine. I’ll remember that the next time you need something and don’t want to get out of bed.”

Both she and Sam laugh, and he claps Steve on the shoulder and steers him out of the room. “No, you won’t. Come on, man, we got paperwork. And besides,” he glances conspiratorially at her over his shoulder, “Your girl really needs her beauty sleep.”

They’re both cackling as Natasha tosses a pillow at their backs, the bastards they are.

*** 

In the middle of her bedroom, there is a giant teddy bear with the words _Get Well Soon!_ stitched across its tummy.

“From Tony,” Steve reads from the tag hanging off the bear’s paw, which is probably as big as her face, thank you.

“It’s hideous,” she states matter-of-factly.

“That’s what Pepper wrote here, too. She also hopes you’re feeling better.”

“I am, so you can get that thing the hell out of here.” She stretches her arms above her head, grinning. “And I’ll definitely watch your ass as you walk out.”

Steve wiggles his backside in the air, just a little, as he bends down and hauls the bear over his shoulder.

*** 

“ _Harder_ , Rogers,” Natasha gasps, squeezing her thighs around his hips for emphasis. “I haven’t waited this long just for you to treat me like a goddamn chin— _ah—_ doll.”

“It’s only been four days,” he replies, grinning in slight self-satisfaction as another rough thrust has her moaning and struggling for something to hold on to. She settles with one hand in his hair and the other practically clawing at his behind, pushing him deeper inside.

He gives a coarse groan, and she’s the one who’s grinning now.

“Faster,” she whispers roughly in his ear, and he obliges, like always. Because he _always_ gives her what she wants, he’s so selfless. Or maybe he just loves her that much. Or maybe it’s just _both_ , because she knows damn well that she’d give the world to him if she could, and she loves him just as much as the other way around.

He’s hers.

_Hers, hers, hers._

“More,” she cries out on a broken moan, thighs trembling around his waist, fingers tugging at his hair, and when he complies she’s _there_ , tightening herself around him as she loses herself in her pleasure. Steve results to slow, shallow thrusts, mouth wet and red and hanging open as he watches her face, completely rapt.

All of the tension eases out of her body on one long, final sigh. She blinks slowly, but gives Steve a small nod of her head, and that’s all he needs to sink back into her, the gentleness in his movements so perfectly controlled that it makes her smile. He’s not going to hurt her or cause her any discomfort, and she knows that he wants nothing more than to just rut at her until he’s just as sated as she is, but she also knows that he enjoys in caring after her, even if he doesn’t realize he’s doing it at times like this.

She gives him small moans and dazed hums to encourage him, and it’s not long before he’s pressing her into the mattress, mouth hot on the valley between her breasts where he’s chanting her name between heavy, heaving pants.

Afterwards, he lays atop her, careful to keep most of his weight on the bed so he doesn’t completely crush her. She’s combing her fingers through his damp hair; he’s tracing patters on her hipbone. And then she laughs.

“What?” He grumbles against her side, though she can feel his smile, too.

“It turns out that there are, in fact, benefits to being sick.”

“Wow, that’s terrible,” he chuckles. “Really, I’d like to see you try and tell that to pre-serum me.”

“Hmm. Would that require moving?”

“Hope not. I like it here.”

She smiles, brushing her thumb against the shell of his ear. “Me too.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't forget to send in prompts!


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